Cognitive Dissonance Courtesy of the NY Times

The Times unleashed its November surprise today - a pathetic attempt to blame George W. Bush for the release of supposedly classified weapons documents concerning the former Iraqi dictatorship under Saddam Hussein.

The US government has thousands of documents concerning former Iraqi weapons programs, so many so that intelligence officers have been unable to sort through them all. Under pressure from congress, the President authorized that certain Iraqi documents be released in order to prove the existence of weapons programs that were continuing up to 2003 in Iraq (and there were plenty of them, even though the Times denies it). Evidently some of these documents contain detailed drawings of nuclear devices - detailed enough that they could virtually serve as the blueprint for a nuclear bomb.

The Times intends this as a November surprise - hey, look! The President is responsible for the proliferation of nuclear weapons! The problem with this meme, of course, is that to project the idea that "these Iraqi documents show how to make a nuke, and it's Bush's fault that they are now public" conflicts with the Times (and the American left's) precious and ongoing assertions that Saddam Hussein was no threat to the US. If Hussein was one year away from making the bomb, and had blueprints to prove it, don't you think the possession of those documents and technology could be dangerous?

I think this is a special case of media bias, and an interesting one. Not only is it another of the Times pathetic attempts to influence an election, it shows just how far the newspaper is willing to go to prove their point, or how far they have detached themselves from reality. This report clearly shows that Iraq was very much a threat to the world in 2003 (including all that the documents say about his ongoing weapons programs) and the Times is willing to finally admit that fact in the hopes that it damages the GOP.

Confusing? Yes. Causing some liberals' heads to explode? Most certainly.

UPDATE: The fact that the Times is now claiming damage at the release of these Iraqi documents now effectively authenticates the whole lot - including ones that explain Iraq's plans to assassinate world leaders, make biological weapons and delivery systems in 2002, and Iraq's connection to Osama bin Laden as early as 1994. Oops.

Oh, yea - and how can the Times be mad at the release of classified documents? Isn't that their thing?

UPDATE: The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee responds:

...it is also important to emphasize that the IAEA, contrary to its assertions, never raised any concerns about this material with the United States Government before going to the press. Similarly, the DNI's office has informed me that no agency of the U.S. Government had raised any issues about the potential or actual release of these documents before yesterday. If there were such problems, they would have been better addressed through the appropriate channels rather than the press.

...

Only 1 percent of the estimated 120 million pages of captured documents have been reviewed, and we must continue working to promptly understand these materials. If there is concern about Saddam's nuclear program, there should be similar concern about potential connections between Saddam and al-Qaeda suggested in the documents.

...

Finally, it is disappointing but not surprising that the New York Times would continue to participate in such blatant and transparent political ploys, including what I believe are improper efforts by the IAEA to interfere with U.S. domestic affairs. The sad reality is that the New York Times has done far more damage to U.S. national security by the disclosure of vital, classified, intelligence programs than is likely to be caused by the inadvertent disclosure of decades-old information that had already been in the hands of Saddam's regime.

That's what you call a rhetorical slap in the face. Do you think the Times will issue a correction next Tuesday?

The NY Times High Standards of Reporting

Today the ever-mockable Times Correction Section had this winner:

An article in some copies on Sunday about The New York Times's editorial that day endorsing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for re-election referred imprecisely to its statements about his record on education. While it said that "no mayor has devoted more effort to improving the schools, " the editorial did not list improvements or specifically mention Mr. Bloomberg's success in winning mayoral control over the schools.

It seems the Times must be setting itself up to a new journalistic standard. Does this mean in future editorials that when the Times makes statements it will actually have facts to back them up? Wow!

However, I followed the link to the original article, and found it was an article in the Times describing the Times's editorial supporting Michael Bloomberg for reelection. What? The Times wrote an article about itself? Is this where the media entity is headed? Has the media grown to the point that it no longer needs such pesky things as "news" and "stories" and "people," but it can actually singularly report on it's own doings? You'd think so with Plame and Judy Miller and Dan Rather and all of that. I hope we can return to a time when newspeople report the news, and are not themselves the news...

NY Times Editor: Terrorist Surveillance Article Wrong to Print

Three months after the NY Times committed treason by printing an article on a top secret terrorist surveillance program that was designed to track world monetary transactions, the Times' ombudsman, Byron Calame, admitted that the paper should not have done it, and the program was not illegal. Ya think?

I haven’t found any evidence in the intervening months that the surveillance program was illegal under United States laws. Although data-protection authorities in Europe have complained that the formerly secret program violated their rules on privacy, there have been no Times reports of legal action being taken.

That's because it wasn't illegal ever, moron! Only you and your paper's hatred of George W. Bush caused you to publish the article!

The lack of appropriate oversight — to catch any abuses in the absence of media attention — was a key reason I originally supported publication. I think, however, that I gave it too much weight.

Allow me to translate: Even though the "Swift" board of financial masters personally and literally looked over the shoulders of US intelligence as they implemented the program, still caused me to believe that the US government and the Bush administration are fundamentally evil, so we decided to alert terrorists to the fact that their money transaction were being traced because we journalists think it's our duty not to report the news, but rather to expose secret government programs during a time of war that we don't like.

Did you get that? Oh - but now they're sorry.

The NY Times Daily... Wow...

From the all too easily spoofed corrections page listed under "Editor's Note:"

The Practical Traveler column in the Travel section on Oct. 16, about passengers' rights when an airline files for bankruptcy, included a reference to two smaller lines, Spirit and Independence Air, that were "believed by analysts to be on the verge of bankruptcy." The Times should have sought comment from the lines. Disputing the report, a spokeswoman for Spirit says that it received $100 million in new financing in July and that it will be starting service next month to four international destinations. As for Independence, it reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission recently that it was making contingency plans for a potential bankruptcy filing.

Translation: The Times did a report on airlines, and some "analyst" told them that two small airlines were also going out of business. Leave it to the Times to not actually ask those airlines about their financial status before running the story. I think that the Times was sure that they were right; however, that's hardly journalism...

NY Times Non-Story is Bogus

A few weeks ago the Times reported that for "the first time" in U.S. history, more women in America were living without spouses than with them.

Besides the fact that this isn't really a story, it turns out that the Times now admits it included 15 - 17 year-olds in its statistics.

What?

No wonder the Times is two steps away from bankruptcy.

Leakers

The AP is announcing that the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Community Peter Hoekstra has suspended a Democratic staff member. He accuses the staff member of leaking a portion of the National intelligence Estimate on Iraq to the NY Times. His evidence? The staff member requested the document from National Intelligence Director John Negroponte three days before it was on the front page of the Times. Coincidence?

Democrats are beginning their typical whining, saying that there is no basis for the staffer's removal.

However, John Hinderaker at Powerline doesn't really care. In his opinion, whether Democrat staffers, Democrat lawmakers, Democrat military officials, or Democrat CIA personnel leak documents to Democrat "journalists" at the Times is really of little consequence. However, and it goes without saying, all of these people should be without their jobs.

Lies, Distortions, and the Press

When you read a headline that says "Libby Says Bush OK'd Leaks, Filing Alleges" you might immediately assume the article is talking about the whole Valerie Plame fiasco. If you thought so, as I did, you would be wrong.

That's the picture that emerges from court papers filed by the prosecutor in the CIA leak case against Libby, who is depicted as doing the bidding of President Bush and Cheney in striking back at administration critic Joseph Wilson.

Striking back at Joe Wilson? How can that be related like it's a fact? We'll get to more of that in bit...

On Thursday, disclosure of official authorization for Libby's leaks to reporters brought strong criticism from administration political foes, but little likelihood that their demands for explanations will be met.

Demand for explanations? I'll explain the whole thing in a bit...

In July 2003, Wilson's accusation that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat "was viewed in the office of vice president as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president, and the president," Fitzgerald's court papers stated.

Part of the counterattack was a July 8, 2003, meeting with New York Times reporter Judith Miller at which Libby discussed the contents of a then-classified CIA report that seemed to undercut what Wilson was saying in public.

Do you see what's going on here? The part of this story completely omitted is the part about Joe Wilson "striking back" at himself. He went to Niger to see if Iraq was trying to get uranium yellowcake. He found out that they were, and reported such to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Then he went to the New York Times and wrote an article that contradicted his own report to the committee and claimed that Bush had twisted intelligence and made the whole Niger-connection thing up!

So Bush and Cheney, after it was revealed that Wilson had written his bogus editorial, decided to leak portions of the National Intelligence Estimate in an effort that the American people know the truth about the Iraq-Niger connection. Is that wrong?

After Wilson began attacking the administration, Cheney had a conversation with Libby, expressing concerns on whether a CIA- sponsored trip to the African nation of Niger by Wilson "was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," Fitzgerald wrote. The suggestion that Plame sent her husband on the Africa trip has gotten widespread circulation among White House loyalists.

This statement is a complete non-sequitur. How else would a no-name like Joe "Hey, my wife works for the CIA" Wilson get a job investigating Iraqi actions in Niger for the CIA? Any other plausible ideas? The man has no, absolutely no intelligence, investigative, or espionage training.

Wilson said he had concluded on his trip that it was highly doubtful Niger had sold uranium yellowcake to Iraq.

This statement is highly dubious. By "Wilson said" they must mean his NY Times editorial and not his report to the Senate Intelligence Committee - an important distinction to make.

In any case, Bush and Cheney declassified portions of the NIE to catch Wilson in his own lie (the President can't leak classified information - when he gives classified info it has summarily been declassified). There was no wrongdoing, no shadiness, just a washed-up former diplomat on a CIA trip because of his wife that turns out to be an anti-Bush crackpot dedicated to tossing out lies and half-truths in order to make the administration look bad. If you take 5 seconds to look it up even the AP can't cover the truth of the story.

NY Times Contradicts Itself, Spreads Propaganda

Here's a winner. It seems that in yesterday's elections the Dover School board in Pennsylvania had eight of its members loose their reelection bids and where replaced by those who campaigned against their introduction of Intelligent Design into the classroom. The Times had a strange take on the case:

All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy.

...

The school board voted in October 2004 to require ninth grade biology students to hear a brief statement at the start of the semester saying that there were "gaps" in the theory of evolution, that intelligent design was an alternative and that students could learn more about it by reading a textbook "Of Pandas and People," available in the high school library.

So which is it? Did the school board mandate the teaching of ID, or just a 15 second introduction to it?

We know that the latter is true, but the Times would have you believe otherwise.

Also, I suppose that this goes to show that when a school district is told by a circuit court that they can teach whatever they want in any way that they want and that the parent's have no say, all you need to do is vote out the school board. Of course, if the Dover case comes back in January and the school board's paragraph on ID is rejected by the courts it doesn't really matter too much who is on the school board, does it?

The Troubled Times

It's not the first time the NY Times had trouble with those tricky things called "facts" but at this rate the rapidly declining newspaper shouldn't be in misery for too long:

The Keeping Score column on Sunday, about new baseball research into hitting and fielding trends that can help assess the impact of pitchers, referred incorrectly to the status of the journeyman Glendon Rusch. He is recovering from a blood-clot scare last season, and is not pitching now; he is not out of the game because he “appears to have run out of employers to disappoint” with his statistically below-average pitching.

Oops.

Paltry U.N. Salary Keeps Annan from Paying Full Rent in New York

Yet another reason why the United Nations is meaningless became apparent today: long-time Secretary General Kofi Annan and now his brother have occupied rent-subsidized housing in New York City for the last 30 years.

Yes, the man who routinely complains that the United States does not fulfill its obligations to the poor has stolen aid allotted to the needy.

The highest leader of what democrats portray as a legitimate super-Congress does not pay taxes in the United States. Still, he feels comfortable to have directly received hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent discounts paid by working families.

A man who urges others to adopt more open-government policies again refuses to disclose his own affairs dealing with abuse of power and public resources.

More of the same.

The story broke in the New York Sun today, and more details are bound to come out, but so far it appears that Mr. Annan moved into the ninth-floor apartment on Roosevelt Island in 1978. At today’s prices, the apartment, with a view of Manhattan and minutes from Midtown, would bring $4500 each month, while tenants pay about $2000. The rest of the rent is paid by New York taxpayers (which doesn’t include ambassadors such as Mr. Annan or his brother). When Mr. Annan became Secretary General in 1997, he moved into the official residence of the Secretary General and transferred the apartment to his brother, another ambassador with means far beyond the typical New York family. If we assume that for 30 years the market value to rent proportion has stayed the same, $300,000 would be a conservative inflation-adjusted estimate for the benefits these hypocrites received.

A post on the American Thinker proposed a great explanation on why liberals would tend to think this a minor deal. The fundamental agenda of leftists is to allocate resources based on political connections versus private means (related articles here).

I’d like to make broad parallels between this case and the United Nations, but I’ll first let more facts come in on the case…which brings us to perhaps the most interesting part of the story:

By all accounts this should be news. If Mark Foley’s sexually explicit emails to a Congressional page were fit to be aired for a month, no decent news source would keep this reporting off the front page. The story broke in the New York Sun today. Will other national publications carry it tomorrow? The NY Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, etc., have yet to publish any information online. Please comment below: if major newspapers don’t give prominent coverage to this scandal, how can it not be construed as media bias in favor of the U.N.?

Here is the web page for the housing complex on the address listed in the article.

Best of 2005

Now that we're in the second half of January, I think it's safe to judge the best articles, posts, quotes and blogs of 2005.

Best column: Karl's New Manifesto:

David Brooks of the NY Times used a Marxist analysis to show how leftists perpetuate oppression. His writing style is measured and courteous, but his attacks modern leftists are brilliant. I emailed the article to a normally long-winded philosophy professor, his only reply about the column in a three-paragraph response was, "I usually enjoy David Brooks' columns, but this one was particularly provocative."

Best quote: Senator Jim Inhofe

After the shame of our state, Senator Tom Harkin, proposed Congressional action to mandate liberal radio programming for armed forces, Jim Inhofe wet to the Senate floor to explain that radio programming was not, in fact, controlled by Congress. He explained to mentally-deficient democrats why the nonpartisan formula based on listenership ended up excluding AirAmerica filth; from his floor speech on November 8:
"The other day I was in the elevator coming up to cast a vote. I was with two of our democrat colleagues, two I respect very much, two very liberal democrat senators, and they were complaining about the fact that all the talk shows are all conservatives and they don't have successful liberal talk shows, and they said, these were their words in the elevator, they said, 'there ought to be a legislative fix to this.' I said, what you guys don't understand is this is market driven. There is just no market for your liberal trite."

I should point out that this quote played a role in in a snarky troll post. Some liberals were upset that a New Hampshire radio host was being let go for driving away advertisers like car dealerships for railing against SUV's. Liberals on the blog thought big business was driving her off the air and advocated government intervention to protect free speech. I posted (under the name 'laughter') an entry-level economics lesson, explaining that she had no fundamental right to a radio show, that she was being driven off not by business but by low popularity: if she was popular, there would be advertisers who want her "legions" of listeners to hear about her products. Alas, economics, constitutional law, logic, etc. is lost upon liberals (but they are good at finding ways to spend money).

Most egregious reporting: Last Letter Home

2005 wasn't a good year for media outlets, from the amazingly overstated Hurricane Katrina aftermath stories to executives spewing outright anti-American lies or reporters making stories of themselves (Judith Miller, James Risen, Mary Mapes).

In my view, James Dao of the New York Times loses for giving the clearest example of 2005 about reporting with an agenda. Michelle Malkin provides pages of documentation about the incident. Mr. Dao, wanting to paint troops in Iraq as fatalistic, took a sentence from the last letter of a Marine completely out of context for an article about the 2000th death from Operation Iraqi Freedom. In a letter containing phrases like, 'Others have died for my freedom. Now this is my mark' and 'I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live', the reporter used the fallen soldier's introduction to get what he wanted for the article. The family of the Marine came forward to set the record straight.

Best news blog: NRO's The Corner

The National Review has by far the most up-to-the-minute information and some of the best columnists (Victor Davis Hansen, Jonah Goldberg, Larry Kudlow) of any free website. The Corner is one of the best resources for finding who said what, when.

Best general blog: I Hate Horses

Hat tip to Kelly Guiter, from 'Just a Bit Outside...' sports blog. On the lighter side, these posts are funny, but the reader comments are truly hilarious. Contractually guaranteed to brighten even the most depressing day.

Ask and You Shall Recieve

The whining and the crying and the shouting all comes to a head...

Bush has no plan for Iraq? Then what's this?

I will now predict that this will be called childish, stupid, pointless, a lost cause, etc.

However, I did prefer Bush's old plan for Iraq...

1) Get Saddam
2)Kill Terrorists
3)Help and train the Iraqis to kill terrorists

...but that's ok.


UPDATE: I spoke too soon. This plan is the infantalization of America. A war plan for 6-year olds. I already deleted this blog from our site...

UPDATE again: Here comes the attack dog of the NY Times Editorial Board. Doing a 180 from their previous argument (that there is no plan) they now claim that this new plan is "nothing new" and is just a rehashing of the current failed policy. I think someone could do an entire blog only on the hypocrisy of the Times. That is, if you have $50 to spare to read it.

An interesting question

Powerline asks the question of why the old media, such as the NY Times, seem to be obsessed with debunking Judeo-Christian religions?

We're all still waiting for similar attacks on Islam.

Still waiting.

Comical

To say the least.

It appears that the NY Times doesn't even know where Iran is.

Oh, well.

October Surprises

Just about one week left before the mid-term elections and everyone's favorite newspaper, the NY Times, has decided to print on page one a collage of photos from soldiers' funerals in Arlington National Cemetery. Just before this, Newsweek elected to print emails from a soldier recently killed in Iraq - emails that criticize the Bush administration and look bleakly on the future of the Iraqi military.

There can be no doubt that these "stories" are intended to be October surprises. The media is now in a full-court press to remove the Republicans from congressional leadership. It's clear that they haven't published photos of soldiers' funerals before, nor reported on a single email among the hundreds of thousands that show the soldiers' support for and belief in the war. Actually, it's laughable at this point to attempt to explain away these stories as anything but a vein attempt at the media to influence the political beliefs of the American people.

Of course, the American people are not necessarily buying it. With new reports that newspaper circulation is still in a nose-dive, Americans are looking to alternative sources for non-biased (or at least not liberally-biased) news. Were fed up with the fabrications, the "anonymous sources" and the lack of the media's ability to choose sides. One commenter for the Newsweek article wrote:

Is he one of the fine Americans that CNN gleefully showed getting killed by snipers? To all those in harm's way - there are plenty back here that pray for you every day and want you to win, although you won't find them on the TV or in "news."

And that's the story that no one is reporting.

Liberal Logic: AirAmerica Bankruptcy Has No Correlation With Listener Interest

You won't easily find the news from most media outlets, but AirAmerica Radio just filed for bankruptcy protection, more than likely ending it's short-lived confronfrontation with conservative talk radio. In case any of you big-hearted supporters were wondering, you don'tneed to send immediate aid, Al Franken is still collecting his $900K salary as the company is liquidated...'cuz he's big enough, loud enough, full of enough shit, and doggone it, they're willing to pay him.

The most amusing part of the NY Times story is the observation that "industry executives were quick to deny any suggestion that the filing reflected lack of listener interest in the so-called progressive talk format." Even after management shuffles, expanding into new markets and benefiting from the mainstream media's "common sense" that it's harder than ever to support Republicans, AirAmerica has lost more money every year ($19.6m in '05). It sounds like they've been asking Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi for business advice; maybe they should consider giving their employees free health care...

Tony Snow vs. the Media

Mainly the NY Times, USA Today, and of course CBS News.

Good for him.

What are you searching for?

Since we have been indexed by most search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) we have a number of hits each day by people searching for... lots of weird things. Some things I can understand:

Bill Clinton Lies Rosa Parks funeral
president clinton speech at rosa parks funeral

Some things I can't:

moving radar for defiance ohio

Did they mean "defense?"

ny times scandal article on GE CAP

There must be something with this one that I don't get...

just gonna "buy ketchup" lyrics

...especially with this one. Oh, well. Here at On the Radar we support anonymous and bizarre searches as long as they bring you here. We should really advertise...

I Don't Know How Else to Say it: The AP Sucks

Today the AP fired off the most biased, fact-less, and pointless article I have ever read. You'd think it came from the NY Times! The title should give it all away: Sources: Rove Won't Be Indicted Today. Yes, and we're all so very concerned about that. The AP would like you to believe it's the biggest story of the century. Of course, when a grand jury is going after Republicans I can understand the AP's delight.

Some lawyers have raised the specter of broader conspiracy charges as well. Any trial would shine a spotlight on the secret deliberations of Bush and his team as they built the case for war against Iraq

Bush ordered U.S. troops to war in March 2003, saying Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program posed a grave and immediate threat to the United States. No such weapons were found. The U.S. military death toll climbed past 2,000 this week.

Here is the traditional media spin. 1) the WMD's were only one of many reason for the US to go to war in Iraq, not the only or even the most important one. 2) Saddam had intent, plans, and a structure to begin to produce WMD's as soon as he bribed enough UN ambassadors to pay for it. 3) How does the 2,000 soldiers fit onto this?

The lack of an indictment against Rove is a mixed outcome for the administration. It keeps in place the president's top adviser, the architect of his political machine whose fingerprints can be found on virtually every policy that emerges from the White House.

The ever-repeated "Rove is the ultimate master of all" claim. How silly.

Libby is considered Cheney's alter ego, a chief architect of the war with Iraq. Any trial of Libby would give the public a rare glimpse into Cheney's influential role in the West Wing and his behind-the-scenes lobbying for war.

Is there any proof for this statement? Was Cheney in the west wing"lobbying for war?" How can they get away with making this stuff up? Facts, anyone?

After weeks of hand-wringing about possible indictments in the investigation, Bush and his advisers kept an upbeat appearance Friday.

I'm sorry, but I must have missed all that "hand-wringing." The AP would like you to believe that the White House is all terribly concerned about this whole thing. Does anyone remember Bush describing it as "background noise"? That's what Bush thinks about this - the "hand-wringing" invention is to make you believe that Bush is in trouble... he's not.

Senior Republicans inside and outside the White House have wondered whether the case has been a distraction for Rove. They point to the failed Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, which was derailed by conservative activists, many of them allies of Rove.

Ah! I see! Everything that has gone "wrong" with the administration is due to the evil master Rove and his all-controlling powers being distracted! I understand!

On July 7, the president told reporters that if anyone in his administration committed a crime in connection with the leak, that person "will no longer work in my administration." Weeks later, he backpedaled from that assertion.

This is as false as it can get. Bush did say that "if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration" on July 7. However, he never "backpedaled" from this assertion. In fact, at the time this statement was made he was criticized for it! Democrats at the time said that the statement was a "backpedaling" from June 2004 when Bush said he would fire anyone involved in the leak case. Of course, it's not the AP's purpose here to report facts - it's only to make the Bush administration look bad.

Let's not forget the overarching missing information here, either. The fact that no crime was committed. Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent is about as secret as George Takei being gay. Everyone knew she was in the CIA, and in fact Libby and Rove and Cheney thought that she was in a non-secret CIA division, which is what they told Judy Miller! So, the real truth of the story is this:

1) Plame's identity as a CIA agent was not a secret
2) Libby thought that Plame worked for a non-secret division of the CIA
3) It's only a crime if you intentionally leak that name of an undercover CIA agent

Therefore:

1) No crime was committed
2) The grand jury had to indict someone, and it seems that Libby misled them
3) The is a non-issue for Bush, Republicans, and the administration for the above reasons

Also:

1) The AP is immensely biased and irresponsible

NY Times Daily Laugh

Here is another classic:

An article on March 29 about museums and historic preservation groups that have changed their names to widen their appeal misspelled the name of the headquarters city of the American Antiquarian Society (which is not changing its name). It is Worcester, Mass., not Wooster. A reader wrote to the editors about the error this week and said he had written an earlier message, which apparently went astray.

Did it get lost in the ethernet?